Friday, December 16, 2016

During
the early nineteenth century, conflict between England and France led to an
American trade embargo that restricted the importation of goods from these
countries. Soon after, English hostilities on the high seas that led to the War
of 1812 also stopped the flow of foreign goods to America, including fine
British ceramics. The lack of certain imported goods led to the establishment
of a number of new American industrial enterprises to fill the void.

In
the late 1700s and early 1800s, a form of thin, cream-colored ceramic called
creamware was being manufactured in England. One style of creamware was made
popular by British Queen Charlotte and became known as Queensware. Queensware
enjoyed immense commercial popularity and was one of the items banned during
the embargo and subsequent war.

Creamware Cup (left)
Shown with a Copy in American Queensware (right)

Utilizing
local clays, some possibly dug from within the city, Philadelphia potters
attempted to make their own versions of Queensware and other fine British
earthenware ceramics. However, the use of local clays produced a more yellow
vessel body rather than white or cream colored. Some potteries, such as the
newly-formed Columbian Pottery, offered a British-trained potter to make the
enterprise seem more authentic. By 1808, Scottish-born Master Potter Alexander
Trotter was producing earthen tablewares for the Columbian, including yellow
tea and coffee pots, sugar boxes, jugs, baking dishes, chamber pots, and other
items. The Columbian’s goods were advertised “at prices much lower than they
can be imported” and at rates that “are less than half the price of the
cheapest imported Liverpool Queensware” (Myers 1980).

AMERICAN

Manufactured
Queensware, at the following reasonable

rates-viz

Chamber
Pots 4s a $2 25 per doz

Ditto
ditto 6s 1
80 ditto

Wash
Hand Basons 4s 2
ditto

Ditto
ditto 6s 1
60 ditto

Pitchers 4s 2
70 ditto

Coffee
Pots 4s 5 ditto

Ditto
ditto 6s 4 ditto

Tea Pots 12s 2 25 ditto

Ditto 18s 1 80 ditto

Pitchers 6s 1 80 ditto

Dinner
Plates 75 cents per dozen-all other sizes, with every other article of
Queensware, in proportion

Trotter’s
wares became popular and were soon advertised for sale as far away as
Alexandria, Virginia and other cities along the east coast. Trotter continued
his work in Philadelphia until around 1815, when the Columbian Pottery closed
up and he moved to Pittsburgh. For a short time period Trotter continued
manufacturing Queensware in the Pittsburgh area, where he produced vessel forms
that were “similar to those of the Potteries in Philadelphia” (Myers 1980).

By
1810, another Scotsman, Captain John Mullowny, was advertising similar ceramic
articles for sale at his Washington Pottery on Market Street. Mullowny also
appears to have been successful in his ventures and by 1812 he had added specialized
production techniques and included engine-turned and press-molded Queensware
vessels in his inventory (Myers 1980). An advertisement from that same year
lists the many vessel forms produced by the Washington Pottery (Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser
1812).

WAREHOUSE
OF THE

WASHINGTON
POTTERY,

HIGH NEAR SCHUYLKILL SIXTH
STREET,

The public are informed that
Soup and Shallow

PLATES are now ready for delivery in addition to the

following articles, of which a constant supply is always

kept up.

CUPS & SAUCERS,

SUGARS & CREAMS,

Gallon, Quart, Pint & Half Pint Grelled & Plain PITCHERS

Gallon, Quart, Pint and Half Pint BOWLS,

SALT and PEPPER BOXES,

STEWING DISHES that will stand the fire,

BASINS and EWERS,

WINE COOLERS,

MANTLE ORNAMENTS & GARDEN POTS

Quart, Pint and Half Pint MUGS,

GOBLETS, TUMBLERS & EGG CUPS,

BUTTER TUBS & BUTTER BOATS,

PICKLING JARS & JELLY POTS of all sizes,

MILK PANS, &c, &c, &c.

The Plates manufactured at the
Washington Pottery,

will be found by experience superior to imported plates,

when necessary to stew on a chafing dish or embers, as

they will stand the heat without cracking.

1812
Ad Copied from a Philadelphia Aurora
General Advertiser for the Washington Pottery

Following
the end of the war in 1815, many of the potteries continued to manufacture Queensware
vessels; however, the resumption of trade with Britain meant that the finer
quality Staffordshire wares were available once again and at rates similar to
the American-made knock-offs. Ceramics, as well as other British goods, flooded
the market in 1815 and 1816 in an attempt to stifle the new American industries.
Soon it became apparent that the Philadelphia potters could not compete with
England’s finer pieces and most of the Queensware producers were out of
business by 1820.

The
State Museum collections house a number of examples of Queensware recovered from
archaeological sites located mainly in the city of Philadelphia. Evaluation of
these pieces indicates that the quality of the Philadelphia wares is somewhat
lacking. Many issues related to the Queensware pieces appear to be associated
with the production and firing of the vessels including: overfired, burned, or
bubbled glaze; kiln furniture marks; uneven or missing glaze; crazing; smeared
clay; and pitting. Every piece identified as Queensware exhibited at least one,
if not several, of these flaws.

Due
to its yellow color, Queensware is often mistaken for yellowware (1828-1930). However,
the Queensware pieces have thinner walls and very little decoration, as opposed
to yellowware. Queensware colors fall generally into the yellow spectrum but
there is a greater variation in shades. Yellowware often exhibits linear bands
of varying colors (blue, white, cream) or has a white interior whereas
Queensware does not. And Queensware
vessels more often take the form of tea pots, cups and saucers, pitchers, and
chamberpots, while common yellowware forms are often mixing bowls, basins, milk
pans, molds, and baking dishes.

If
you found this blog of interest and would like more detailed information,
articles regarding Queensware will be published in an upcoming issue of The Journal for Northeast Historical
Archaeology. Additional information on Philadelphia ceramics and citations
for this blog can be found in the following sources:

Miller,
George L. and Amy C. Earls

2008 War and Pots: The Impact of Economics and
Politics on Ceramic Consumption Patterns. In Ceramics in America 2008.

Myers,
Susan H.

1980 Handcraft
to Industry: Philadelphia Ceramics in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century.
Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, No. 43. Washington: Smithsonian
Institution Press.

Friday, December 2, 2016

During this year’s excavation at Fort Hunter (2016), the State Museum of Pennsylvania was fortunate
enough to have a survey crew from PennDOT perform LiDAR
scans of the milk house structure and surrounding excavation units. Partnering
across agencies provided an opportunity for PennDOT to establish a new bench mark
for highway use and for archaeologists to utilize modern technology not
available within the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

What is LiDAR?

LiDAR, a form of 3D scanning, is
a method for creating a 3D model of an object, structure or environment. A LiDAR
scanner (seen in the image below) bounces millions of points of light off of objects
in its path, measuring distance and position. By collecting data on millions of
points, a three dimensional point cloud is created which can be processed into
a 3D model. PennDOT uses LiDAR to create highly accurate renderings that can be
used in the management of Pennsylvania’s roads and bridges. Our excavations at
Fort Hunter were scanned using Terrestrial LiDAR.
This form of LiDAR, involves setting up the LiDAR scanner in several stationary
positions around the site or structure to be scanned. Aerial LiDAR has aided
in the discovery
of long forgotten archaeological sites obscured by jungle overgrowth. These
two types of LiDAR differ not only in their scanning method, but also in the resolution
and applications of the data they produce. Terrestrial LiDAR provides more
accurate and detailed models of smaller areas than aerial LiDAR, which makes it
an especially useful tool in examining features at Fort Hunter.

At Fort Hunter, the survey crew
used terrestrial LiDAR to create detailed and precise 3D maps of structures and
our excavations. The scans of Fort Hunter are comprised of over an estimated
100 million points. Our main objective was to capture information about the milk
house and smoke house features, but additional data was also captured.

LiDAR
scan of Fort Hunter, note the black areas are where the laser’s path was
blocked from reaching the structure. Note the milk house in the lower right
corner of the image. Image: PennDOT/Photogrammetry & Surveys Section

As you can imagine, it is
impossible to capture all of the three dimensional data at an archaeological
site using photographs and hand drawn maps. Terrestrial LiDAR creates a map with
far more detail and precision than can be created by hand. The processed LiDAR
scans that resulted from this endeavor can be rotated 360 degrees, viewed under
multiple filters, and a video can even be made to appear as if you are moving
through the scanned site. Millimeter-accurate measurements can be made between any
points in the model.

This
rendering of the milk house at Fort Hunter can be used to take measurements,
create images, videos or 3D printed models. Image: PennDOT/Photogrammetry &
Surveys Section

How will these scans be used?

The digital data created by the LiDAR
scans will become part of the site’s collected documentation, and it has the
ability to greatly enhance the archaeological record without using additional
shelf space. In the image below, you can see a circular stone foundation of
what is believed to be an octagonal smoke house adjacent to the structure we
refer to as the milk house. The survey crew was able to scan both the interior
and exterior of the milk house, creating a 3D replica of the structure as it
exists today. Because archaeology is a destructive process, and because it is generally
not practical to leave excavations open indefinitely, LiDAR scans provide an
excellent opportunity to digitally recreate a structure or three dimensional
feature long after fieldwork has concluded.

Two
images of the smokehouse’s foundation produced from PennDOT’s LiDAR scan at
Fort Hunter. The scans can be viewed from any angle and filters can be applied
to change the appearance of the images. Image: PennDOT/Photogrammetry &
Surveys Section

The images and data from these
scans will provide enhanced interpretive material for future exhibits, and
carry forward our goal of educating the public about Pennsylvania’s archaeology.

The State Museum of
Pennsylvania’s Section of Archaeology would like to extend a big Thank You to
PennDOT’s Photogrammetry & Surveys Section for lending their time and
talents to provide us with this data.

Please
visit our gallery of Anthropology and Archaeology on the second floor of The
State Museum of Pennsylvania where you can view additional artifacts
representing our archaeological heritage. Look for an updated exhibit on our
investigation at Fort Hunter Mansion and Park in the spring of 2017.

Friday, November 18, 2016

The
Fort Hunter field season has wrapped up and now artifact processing is in full
swing. As we clean and process the artifacts we are able to see more clearly
what is present in the collection. It is important to examine the types of
artifacts present in a collection as they help tell the story of the landscape
and its use. In order for archaeologists to develop an accurate timeline for
sites, several methods are used including stratigraphy, radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology,
and artifact typologies based on datable artifacts.

This
year at Fort Hunter, we found the most complete example of a thimble to date. Thimbles
may not be the first artifact type you think of when contemplating the kinds of
artifacts that can help date a site, but in fact thimbles have a long and well
documented history, though not widely published.

There
is documentation of leather thimbles as early as the medieval period in Europe.
Bone, horn and wooden thimbles have also all been found on early archaeological
sites (Hill 1995). The earliest metal thimbles in England appear in AD 1350
(Hill 1995). At this time thimbles were being made and decorated by hand, using
various techniques including hammering, stamping and pressing. Like many other
objects, later period thimbles were produced via mechanical methods of casting.
During the 17th century some of these machine made thimbles were
made through a slightly different process, making them from two pieces by
attaching the separately made crown to the body. This process of manufacture is
another clue to dating them.

Just
as the process for making thimbles changed, so did the form or shape and design
on thimbles. It wasn’t until the fifteenth century that thimbles became taller
and similar to their current form, while previously they were a short shallow
cup-like shape (Hill 1995, UK Detector Finds Database 2005). The height of the
thimble sides as well as the height of the dome varied between manufacturers as
well as through time. Designs on thimbles also changed, beginning with hand
punched “pits” or indentations in the medieval period and later changing to
mechanically indented or knurled indentations (Hill 1995, UK Detector Finds
Database 2005). The indentations or designs are most often small round
indentations or can also be a waffle pattern. These varying patterns on the
body or crown of a thimble can also indicate its age. Finally, the rim of a
thimble can be indicative of a specific time period as some rims were left
flat, whiles others were rolled.

18th
Century thimble found at Fort Hunter (36Da159) during 2016 State Museum of
Pennsylvania field season.

With
this brief understanding of why thimbles are considered datable, we can now look
at the thimble found this year at Fort Hunter. As can be seen in the image, the
Fort Hunter thimble is a one piece cast thimble with knurled indentations and
the waffle-patterned crown. Based on historical research this form and design
is often called a “Lofting” type of thimble, named for John Lofting a Dutch
thimble maker, who produced large quantities of thimbles for export from
England (UK Detector Finds Database 2005). It is believed that the Fort Hunter thimble
represents the final development in the “lofting” form, which was quickly
copied and exported by other European manufacturers throughout the 18th
century.

Lofting
thimbles found at Fort Loudon

Other
types of thimbles found at Fort Loudon: 2-piece
17th century (left), 19th century crown with concentric
design (right)

Top
of other types of thimbles found at Fort Loudon: 2-piece 17th century (left), 19th
century crown with concentric design (right)

Another
important aspect of having good datable artifacts on a site is that comparative
analyses can be done between sites. In order for archaeologists to develop the
most accurate picture of past life, how artifact and site types were used and
to determine whether sites are contemporaneous, comparisons are made using as
many examples of specific artifact and site types as possible. For example,
there have been thimbles found at other French and Indian War period forts in
Pennsylvania, such as the five 18th century Lofting thimbles, one 17th
century two-piece thimble and one 19th century thimble with a
concentric crown design found at Fort Loudon.
Other examples of thimbles from Pennsylvania forts include two 18th
century Lofting type thimbles from Fort Augusta and Fort Morris each. Fort
Morris also has an example of a 17th century two-piece thimble. Having
this information allows archaeologists to see that there are similarities in
the form, decoration and ages of this artifact type which not only helps date
these sites, but may also lead to further conclusions about who in these forts
were using the thimbles: was it soldiers, a designated tailor or women (Gale
2007)? These are just some of the questions that can be explored by further
analyzing the thimbles.

18th
century Lofting thimbles from Fort Augusta

Thimbles
found at Fort Morris: 18th century Lofting thimbles (right and
left), 2-piece 17th century (center) (image from Warfel 2010).

So,
through using previous archaeological evidence as well as the historic record these
little artifacts have proven to be an important tool in helping archaeologists
understand the period of occupation and activities for many sites. As a common
domestic object, thimbles can help date a site or a component of a site through
the artifact typology, as our Fort Hunter thimble helps us develop a better understanding
of the landscape around the Fort Hunter Mansion.

References:

Gale, R. R.

2007 "A Soldier-Like Way": The
Material Culture of the British Infantry 1751-

Friday, November 4, 2016

It has been another busy and productive October at The State
Museum wrapping up Archaeology Month celebrations and outreach programs. Fort
Hunter artifacts are in process in the lab and the 2016 Workshops in
Archaeology last Saturday was a well-attended event with over 145 participants.
If you missed the Workshops this year, or would like to learn more about recent
archaeological investigations and research in the region, we invite you to the
Eastern States Archeological Federation (ESAF) 83rd Annual Meeting
this weekend in Langhorne, Pennsylvania at the Sheraton Bucks County. Those
interested in Paleoindian archaeology will find this year’s conference
particularly informative.

Fluted point and
endscrapers from a Paleoindian component at the Snyder Complex site, NJ. Photographer
credit: Kurt Carr.

Thursday kicked off the conference
with a well-received tour of two Paleoindian sites in New Jersey, the Snyder
Complex and Plenge. However, it is still possible to attend Saturday and Sunday
paper sessions. Walk-in registration will remain open Friday through Saturday
afternoon. Follow the provided link to ESAF meeting registration
for more details.

Tour
guides Jen Rankin (Temple University, AECOM), Michael Stewart (Temple
University, New Jersey Historic Preservation Office), Leonard Ziegler (Society
for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Archaeological Society of New Jersey), and Joe
Gingerich (Temple University) deserve accolades for setting the prehistoric
stage in a vivid and entertaining way on yesterday’s tour. Stories from their combined
decades of archaeological investigation at these locations contextualized the
sites, making them come alive in the minds of participants.

Leonard Ziegler, long
time collector at the Plenge site taking lead on the tour. Photographer credit: Kurt Carr

Regular
conference sessions begin today, Friday, November 4th. Kurt Carr, Senior
Curator (The State Museum of Pennsylvania) and current ESAF President chairs a
prehistoric session focusing on the use of lithic quarries in Pennsylvania by
indigenous peoples. The concurrent session, chaired by William A. Farley (University
of Connecticut), explores Native American cultural history spanning the Protohistoric,
Contact and Early Historic archaeological record on the Eastern Seaboard. Early
afternoon Contributed Papers, a session chaired by Ernest A. Wiegand (Norwalk
Community College), discuss investigations at Allen Meadows: A Paleoindian camp in the Norwalk River Valley; and an
elementary school archaeology outreach program at the historic School in Rose
Valley, Stephen Israel (The School in Rose Valley). Late afternoon Contributed
Papers provide a greater regional perspective of prehistoric lithic use, monument
building, Hopewell influence in North Central Ohio, and Metz Transitional ware
pottery. This session is chaired by Justin A. Reamer (University of Pennsylvania).

Saturday
sessions include a deep dive into Paleoindian
Peoples and Landscapes of the Northeast, chaired by Jonathan C. Lothrop (New
York State Museum) and Zachary L. Singer (University of Connecticut), and Urban Archaeology in Historic Philadelphia,
chaired by Kevin Bradley (Commonwealth Heritage Group). A Contributed Papers
session in the late afternoon continues on the theme of Paleoindian archaeology
with in-depth analyses of tool use and experimental tool production. Chaired by
Lucy Harrington (Mercyhurst University), her thesis research of Paleoindian through
Middle Archaic bifaces and unifacial tools was largely conducted with
collections curated at The State Museum of Pennsylvania.

The Contributed Papers following the Historic
Philadelphia session is chaired by our very own Curator, Janet Johnson and will
be held in the late morning. These papers will cover an eclectic mix of
historic and prehistoric topics from the Waynesburg
and Blacksville Street Railway Company in Green County, PA, Marc Henshaw
(Michael Baker International), to Intra-Family
Tenancy in Antebellum West Virginia, Gary Coppock (Skelly and Loy, Inc). It
is also an opportunity to see a repeat presentation of Effigies of the Susquehannock by Janet, who was a featured
presenter at last week’s Workshops, as well as an overview of Social Complexity during the Late
Prehistoric in Western, PA by John P. Nass, Jr. (California University of
Pennsylvania). The evening will be concluded at 8pm with Banquet speaker, Roger
Moeller (Archaeological Services), A
Return to the Templeton Paleoinidian Site After 40 Years. Banquet tickets
are now limited and may not be available at the door.

The
final session held on Sunday is chaired by Richard Veit (Monmouth University)
and will also feature an array of prehistoric and historic papers from
archaeological investigations in Delaware and New Jersey. Use the following
link to download an ESAF
meeting schedule and presentation abstracts for a complete summary of events
and speakers.

On a
final note the Section of Archaeology would like to extend aspecial thanks to all our dedicated
volunteers who helped behind the scenes, making the 2016 Workshops in
Archaeology a success: Andi, Clydene & Steve, Linda, Judy, Chriss, Paul,
Toni, Phil, Yasmin, Aunyer, and Hope.

Friday, October 21, 2016

The State Museum of Pennsylvania’s Section of Archaeology
invites you to join us October 29, 2016 for our annual Workshops in Archaeology
program. The theme of this year’s
presentations is Native American symbolism in artifacts and on the cultural landscape. As always the program is designed to offer an
overview of archaeological research and discoveries to the general public.

Anthropologists have long examined symbols created by past
cultures as a way of interpreting and understanding social, political or
individual expression. These take the
form of abstract designs and depictions of animal, human and supernatural
figures, frequently in stone and clay. The
arrangement of earthworks and mounds also had meaning to people in the past.

Some of these symbols had religious connotations. Others
represented clans or depicted supernatural beings that required appeasement. Although rarely found at archaeological sites,
symbols on baskets or beadwork on clothing are also expressions of religious
and cultural beliefs. Some designs may have
been simply decorative art. Whatever the
case, they are reflections of how people perceived and organized their world. Symbolic artifacts recovered from the
archaeological record provide a unique resource for examining past cultural
behavior. Eight presenters will examine
the archaeological evidence of symbolism in Native American cultures and offer
insights into their interpretations.

2016 ANNUAL WORKSHOPS IN ARCHAEOLOGY PROGRAM

Session Descriptions:

All sessions listed below will be held in the Auditorium of
the State Museum

The few accessible petroglyph sites in Pennsylvania are the only intact
locations where evidence intentionally left by the early Native Americans can
be viewed and contemplated in their unaltered natural setting. Among
these, the Parkers Landing Petroglyphs (36CL1) stands out as the most
intensively utilized rock art location known within the upper Allegheny River
basin. The quantity, variable styles and assortment of figures at Parkers
Landing suggests that this location was utilized over a long period of time
possibly beginning in the Middle Woodland period and extending into the 18th
century. But why were they created?

This presentation will include an updated review of this important site
and discuss its figural groupings, possible usage and apparent relationship to
other regional petroglyph sites.

And

The
Safe Harbor Petroglyphs

–Looking for Meaning

Paul Nevin

Rock Art Researcher & Authority on Lower Susquehanna River Rock Art

The Petroglyphs at Safe Harbor, Lancaster County, PA have evoked wonder
for more than 150 years. These rock carvings have often been described as
“enigmatic” - difficult or impossible to interpret or understand. Is it indeed
impossible, or can we begin to get a sense of their purpose and
meaning? Since first visiting the
petroglyphs in the 1980’s a fascination and desire to understand their meaning
has been a challenging task that has often been met with skepticism. “How
can we ever know what was in the minds of the ancient people who created these
images?” Their possible meaning as
theorized by Nevin will be presented along with evidence to support them.

9:50-10:20 a.m.Session 2
Stone Landscapes in

Pennsylvania and
the

Northeast

Daniel Cassidy, AECOM

Jesse Bergevin , Oneida Indian Nation

Christopher Bergman, AECOM

The Stone Landscapes of Pennsylvania and adjoining Northeastern states
are typically composed of well-crafted stone cairns, casual rock piles, and
rock walls, as well as a variety of other dry-laid stone features. Stone Landscapes are a matter of continuing
scholarly debate as to their origin, period of construction, and purpose. This paper discusses a number of locations in
Pennsylvania and New York and presents data on geographic setting, morphology,
methods of construction, and site-specific and regional spatial
patterning. Various theories regarding
their origins are reviewed with an aim to better understanding these enigmatic
landscape features, probably resulting from both Native American and
Euroamerican activities.

10:20-10:40 a.m.Break
coffee and snacks

10:40-11:20 a.m.Session 3Ohio
Hopewell: Bridging

the Sacred and Profane

Paul Pacheco

Associate Professor & Chair
Department of Anthropology
SUNY Geneseo

The central mystery in understanding the construction and use of the
great Central Ohio earthworks and mounds during the Middle Woodland Period is
how and why would low density tribal populations, reliant to a large degree on
fluctuating natural resources, expend so much energy on what most would
classify as ceremonial behavior? This presentation attempts to provide an
answer to this question by integrating what we know about Ohio Hopewell
settlement and subsistence practices with current attempts to understand the
cultural meaning served by the earthwork/mound centers. My perspective is
both multi-scalar and landscape focused, looking at symbolism from household to
inter-regional scales. My goal will be to provide a bridge across
the sacred and profane dichotomy which has come to dominate Ohio Hopewell
archaeology in recent decades.

11:20 a.m-12:00 p.mSession 4Burial Ceremonialism at

Sugar Run Mound (36WA359),

a Hopewellian Squawkie Hill

Phase Site, Warren
County, Pennsylvania

Mark McConaughy, Preservation Specialist

Pennsylvania State Historic
Preservation Office

Sugar Run Mound (36WA359) is a Squawkie Hill phase Hopewel­lian burial
mound located in Warren County, Pennsylvania. There were three separate periods
of mound burial construction at this site. The earliest burial phase included
production of two effigies of a bird and possible celt/ax made from large stone
cobbles, on two sides of a central cobble cist. Multiple cremations were
interred under the bird effigy of Mound Unit 1. Mound Unit 2 consisted of two
stone box tombs each containing an extended burial with some secondary burials
placed around them. Mound Unit 3 had an extended burial laid on the existing
ground surface. The different modes of burial and associated grave goods
indicate the function of Sugar Run Mound changed through time. This
presentation explores those changes.

12:00–1:15 p.m.Lunch (on your own) - see order form for box lunch option

1:15-1:55 p.m.Session 5Shell
Effigies and Animal

Symbolism in Delaware
Burial

Ritual

R. Dustin Cushman

Adjunct Professor of Anthropology

Rowan University

This presentation examines the use of effigy grave goods within the
context of burial rituals in the Delaware Valley and adjacent regions. Burial
ritual among the Delaware evolved from pre-contact forms (before 1620 A.D.) to
reinforce group cooperation and network creation during contact times when such
behaviors and systems would have been advantageous. Shell effigy beads and
pendants tend to be the most abundant forms of animal symbolism found, though
effigy pipes, turtle shell rattles, bear teeth and antler headdresses are also
present. Many of the animals selected appear in Delaware stories of creation
and death; and therefore may symbolize life, death, and the liminality of the
in between.

1:55-2:35 p.m.Session 6Effigies
of the Susquehannock

Janet R. Johnson

Curator, The State Museum of Pennsylvania

The Susquehannock Indians who lived in the Lower Susquehanna River from
about 1575 AD to 1763 are often identified with distinct attributes of ceramic
production. Their ceramics have been
examined and classified by several archaeologists in developing a typology of
Susquehannock pottery attributes. The
Washington Boro phase of the Susquehannock sequence which dates from
approximately 1610-1630 AD exhibits the greatest number of effigy symbols.
Researchers have examined the patterns and placement of effigies on pottery as
an expression of social change or acculturation. This presentation will focus on the
complexity of these design elements, examining patterns for indicators of
individuality or replication across multiple Susquehannock sites.

2:35-3:15 p.m.Session 7Powerful Pipes: Base Metal

Smoking Pipes of the 17th

and 18th Centuries

Rich Veit

Professor and Chair

Monmouth University

Tobacco pipes are among the most personal and intimate of
artifacts. Archaeologists have found
them to be valuable tools for dating sites, tracking trade networks, and
examining social groupings. This
presentation examines an unusual subset of tobacco pipes, the base metal
smoking pipes used and possibly made by Native American peoples in the
Northeast in the 17th and 18th centuries. Ranging from miniscule to massive, these
pipes, which often bear elaborate ornamentation, are found across much of
eastern North America. It concludes that
metal tobacco pipes were part of a broader suite of artifacts used during the
Contact Period that reflect a melding of Old and New World traditions.

3:15-3:30 p.m.Break coffee
and snacks

3:30-4:10 p.m.Session 8 Beadwork Designs

Rosemary Hill

Beaver Clan and member of the Tuscarora Nation

This presenter will share beadwork designs and techniques of raised
beadwork as taught within the Tuscarora community. Traditional designs were acquired through
generations from mother, grandmother, great-aunt and several other Tuscarora
women beadwork teachers. The session will highlight these beading techniques
along with the reason and meaning of patterns, and variety of family
connection that the beading brings to the generations of our people.

The women of the Tuscarora Nation have preserved their gift of beading
by teaching to members in the community, as well as generations of their
own families. This session will feature pieces of original Tuscarora bead work
examples as well as examples created by the artist.

4:10-4:50 p.m.Conclusions/Closing Summary

William Engelbrecht

Professor Emeritus

SUNY/Buffalo State

We are often reluctant to study symbols of the past since we can never
know with certainty the complexity of meaning with which they were imbued. Yet,
Native Americans were and are spiritual people. When we who study the Native
past fail to acknowledge this and ignore possible spiritual symbolism, our
reconstruction of this past is impoverished. However, uncritical projection of
contemporary beliefs and concerns into the past must be avoided. An approach
which weighs multiple lines of evidence including Native oral tradition should
be encouraged in assessing the possible meaning of past symbols.

4:50 – 5:00 p.m.Closing Comments - questions and discussion

5:00 – 6:00 p.m.Social in the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology, Second
Floor

In addition to the presentations, attendees can share their
archaeological discoveries with staff from the State Historic Preservation
Office who will provide assistance with identifying artifacts and recording
archaeological sites, essential tasks for protecting and preserving our
archaeological heritage. An additional offering includes a demonstration by a
master flintknapper who will make stone tools using Native American techniques.
A reception at the close of the sessions will provide an opportunity for the
attendees to meet with the presenters and staff in the Anthropology and Archaeology
Gallery of The State Museum.

9:00 a.m. – 4:00
p.m Flint Knapping
Demonstration

–Auditorium Foyer

Steve Nissly

This presentation will feature an expert flintknapper who
will demonstrate how stone tools were made during the Prehistoric and Contact
periods in Pennsylvania.

One Tank Trip

WFMZ-TV 69 from Reading, Pennsylvania visited The State Museum of Pennsylvania on February 8th, 2017. Karin Mallett prepared a feature piece on great places to visit that are one tank of gas from Reading and our gallery was the focus of this visit. Karin interviewed Kurt Carr, Senior Curator and Janet Johnson in the gallery and provide a nice overview of the spectacular exhibits. Please click on the link below and enjoy this glimpse of the museum during this One Tank Trip!
One Tank Trip: Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology

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